2010 has been a year for a different kind of performance: the full-album gig. While not necessarily filled with the same wonder and anticipation that your more common setlist will contain, a full-album set guarantees the kind of rapt excitement that comes with knowing that your favorite songs from that record will all be played, and the surprises at the end of the set become that much more exciting. There have been a few artists who selected the albums that truly defined their careers — Weezer performed their classics, the Blue Album and Pinkerton, and Roger Waters recreated The Wall with modernized visuals and ideas, capturing much of the same excitement and wonder that had accompanied the album upon its release in 1979. In the case of Peter Hook, co-founder and bass guitarist of the seminal post-punk masters Joy Division and New Order, Friday night’s performance at the Mezzanine was truly the best time and place for a full performance of Unknown Pleasures, the album that began Joy Division’s career, and the only record to be released before the death of their singer, Ian Curtis, in 1980.
